Thursday, December 1, 2011

Thanksgiving festivities

First and foremost, our own local "Turkey Trot."(gotta love the difference in Max and Elle's expressions up there)

For years we went to the one in a neighboring city, but one day while running along the canal, Dave and his friend had the bright idea to start their own right here in our neck of the woods.

That day happened to be five days before turkey day itself but man alive I've got to hand it to these guys (and our friend's Facebook lure), a ton of people showed up.True to my guilt-ridden self, I couldn't enjoy the race as much as I should have because I was so stinkin' mad I didn't spread the word to more people myself. It was so fun and it would have been even more fun had I ventured to tell a few of my favorite running families.

Dang.

There's always next year, right?

But this cute scene took me away from my worries a few times:Seriously, is that cute or what?Lucy ran a surprising amount before I scooped her up in the jogging stroller.

I cheated a little bit cutting off a small part of the 5K loop for a few reasons: 1) because I am not a runner, 2) because I'm a little bit wimpy, 3) because it's a tradition that I always cheat a little bit on Turkey Trots, and 4) because I was pushing my 60-pound five-year-old who kept whining that she wanted to go back.

But I was glad I turned around early because I got to get passed up by my kids once, and then got to watch them circle back and run through the finish line again with their friends:Claire ran the whole 5K with her friend and her jacket in tow.Apparently she was too worried she'd lose her new jacket if she took it off......and apparently my threats about losing her privileges if she loses yet another sweatshirt worked like a charm.They wanted me to take a picture of them posing with their "3s" (for how many miles they ran). Of course I dutifully obliged.

I took this picture after a bunch of people cleared out:There were a LOT of people for a thrown-together race! Way to go Barneys!

I thought these leg-coverings were cute:

The conspirators:(except we have to give the one on the left most of the credit because hey, when you bring your own sound system and invite everyone there you pretty much rule). I loved listening to these guys bring in the runners at the finish line over the microphone.

But Dave sure did his fair share marking the route and putting up signs and balloons and all that jazz.Claire sure enjoyed taking down the balloons.Next it was on to whip up our side-dishes and head to Nana and Papa's house for Thanksgiving dinner.

I thanked my lucky stars over and over that she was willing to be our sweet hostess.

Before we left we made some serious thankful lists:Growing up my family always did this list thing but we've meandered over to our own "Thanksgiving Tree" in our family:For some reason we got suckered back into the "list" this year and we all really liked it.And hey, why not do multiple thankful things on Thanksgiving?We got up to 400 things on that list...next year we'll aim for the 1,000's like the rest of my family does.

One of my fav. things about the day was that Dave's aunt and uncle brought their good friend from Virginia there on the left below:She was amazing and shared the neatest experiences from when she joined the Mormon church years ago. My kids were in awe of the thoughts she shared as we went around and expressed what we are grateful for this last year.

Dave grabbed the camera and caught his cute dad and the love he has for his grandkids:In true Dave's-family-form, they played some competitive football:And we took some pictures:My personal favorite:That night we came home and packed up for our trip to San Francisco.

The kids gave their reports on various things we'd be seeing.Then we snuggled down in bed dreaming of visions of the Golden Gate Bridge.

How grateful I am to have the opportunity each year to reflect...truly take time to reflect on all that we have to be grateful for.

What a fun Thanksgiving! That is an impressive thankful list! We flew to PHX/Mesa to be with family over the holiday and it was so beautiful! It's a pain traveling with three little ones, but being with family makes it worth it.

I love that your family writes reports before you visit. When I was young our family traveled a lot, but the places we visited were all so new that we didn't fully appreciate it as much as we should have. My husband and I want to do the same thing once our family starts doing more "touristy" vacations.

I love the photo of Claire in her bright leggings with those bright balloons, looking like she's about to float on up to the sky! And were those ORANGE trees in the Thanksgiving photos? Unthinkable here in my land of ice and snow :)